Estate Management

Estate Management (EM)

What is the difference between this and Property Management (PM)? Most of the time people refer to both of them interchangeably.

The former term is used in two scenarios:- (1) The first being the assets of a person, ie cash, shares, bonds, property etc. It refers to the management of a person’s assets, especially after the person has deceased;

(2) The other is used for the management of a collection of property / dwelling units of an estate.

For this reason, a council member will see a lot of websites of (1) alongside those for (2). It can be rather confusing for most people. Thus, some people prefer to use the term property management to differentiate it from the assets of a deceased person.

Property Management

By right, the term refers to the management of individual dwelling units. A property manager could be managing the repairs of a dwelling unit that is rented out and owned by an absentee owner. On the other hand, EM refers to a whole estate, the outside of the dwelling units that are owned by individuals or companies. In Singapore, this is referred to as the Common Area. This Common Area is “owned” and managed by the MCST, an organisation set up for that purpose. The MCST may appoint a Managing Agent to manage the estate on their behalf. Separately, an Estate Manager is employed to manage the Common Area of the estate.

Conclusion

The correct term to use for handling of estates is Estate Management (EM). However, as many people are used to the term Property Management (PM), one has to listen to the sentence in full to understand what the other person is trying to communicate. Language & words used change over time due to shifting norms.